Lago Como

On the way up to Lago Como we spied a 'gommista' which is a tyre and alignment place so my first job today was to go and get our wheels aligned and balanced so that we don't trash the relatively new front left tyre. I arrived at the gommista and had to wait for about an hour while he finished another job so I spent some time reading guide books while I waited.

Once my turn came he took one look at the right front tyre and took the wheel off; it was even more worn that the front left had been. In fact it was down to the canvas; it was so far out of alignment that about 80% of the tread wasn't wearing and all the wear was on the remaining 20%. Boy, am I glad that I decided to get the wheels aligned; we now have two new front tyres all nicely balanced and aligned - I hope. The tyres are a bit wider than the originals so it looks like we have 'fat tekkies' on the ice cream van. It definitely seems to handle and hold the road better and when we sell the van we should get some of the money back although it was only 125EUR for two tyres, balancing and alignment. Pretty good value I would say.

During the afternoon we took a drive up the eastern edge of Lago Como, watched some guys learning to kite surf and just generally relaxed. We also spotted mellman having a swim in the water which is pretty cold but not quite as cold as the west coast of Cape Town. Back at the apartment, Andre and Nicki arrived back with 'gelato' which is ice-cream which seems to be something of an Italian speciality. Pretty scrumscious!

I walked along the road a bit and filled up our water bottles from a public water point; very nice tasting water. I think that even Andre and Nicki had a taste; they're a bit allergic to anything other than bottled water because the fall-out of having two sick children is just not worth the risk.

Andre cooked us a delicious supper of salmon which we ate on the patio overlooking Lago Como. Lots of wine and stories and before we knew it, it was 10:30 which is way past Andre's bed time. It was very funny, we looked at the time and Andre immediately jumped up and headed for bed. Andre had also bought some salted sardines which proved to be so salty as to be competely inedible so that part of the meal didn't work at all. It is apparently a delicacy but even I, who really likes salty food, couldn't take it and we dumped the whole lot into the garbage can and then evicted the garbage can out onto the patio.

Quite a view to enjoy with ones' supper!